Chag Sameach – Happy Passover

Can you believe it, here we are, we will be celebrating Passover again. A year has flown by and again we clean our pantries, freeze bread and other items to make space for matza, macaroons, gefillte fish and, and, and ….
Metamucil is preparing for their most exclusive sale period of the year, Matza and Metumucil probably come from the same company – just kidding.

I do love Passover, it is one of my favorite holidays evolving around food and friends.
When I mention the word matza ball soup to my family, everybody gets round eyes. Like little doggies they all start jumping up and down.
It’s also the one time a year where I allow my husband in the kitchen – he actually makes the matza balls after the very secret recipe by Andrew Zimmerman.
Then there is my mom’s flowerless chocolate cake – the mix even without being baked can make any kid happy.
All the preparations are fun, from setting the table, preparing the seder plate, choosing the hagaddah, to table decorations.

Then there is the patchwork of guest, different every year. We discover hidden talents such as someone who can actually sing or can read Hebrew flawlessly, someone who knows hidden or new meanings about the seder, someone who knows nothing and whom we have to educate or someone who does not really care but who still wants to participate.
Wait … did I just describe the 4 children, the wise, the wicked, simple, the one who does not know … chances are we all will have the 4 children at our table tonight, we might not even know .

Passover brings people together.

Not just together to share a meal, since seder means order and we have to go through the first night in a certain way and read, sing recite the hagaddah.
We will share a precious moment in time and space, we will evoke our shared past and apply any leasson learned from it to our story that is being written right now.

Before we could leave Egypt, the 10 plagues came down upon the Egyptians. What are the 10 plagues in our modern society?

One that comes to mind is never having time.
We can nerver stop, we are always on the go, ever connected.
When was the last time we really had a conversation, not over the phone or while driving to work.

What about world hunger?
We have gone far with technology and compared to other countries each of us is blessed and rich. We throw food away and still there are people starving.
When was the last time we felt hunger? I mean not a growling stomach 10 minutes before a meal, but hunger that hurts and nothing in the fridge?

What about violence?
Something to report there in the news every day. People who all of a sudden hate their neighbors or schoolmates, get a gun and kill. There are no words. What about smaller acts of violence, are we always nice with others? Do we say words that hurt?
The Talmud says that the ultimate way of wisdom is kindness, do we even apply that in our lives or is the winner the one who screems the loudest and walks all over other people?

What about pollution, invasive species, the way we treat our planet?
There is a lot to do if we want our children’s children to be able to play outside and maybe witness a mother cat playing with her kittens.

Just four, but I am sure we can come up with 10 easily.

So tonight when you open your doors and let in the 4 children, invite them to your great meal and your so lovely prepared table, tonight when you relive the coming out of Egypt, think of our modern plagues .
Then think of what it takes to make difference for the year to come.
It only takes one person to take the first step, other will start thinking and following and maybe together we can make the world a better place.